Hi! October was an eventful month for EA Sweden. We had our Annual General Meeting, appointed a new board, attended EAG London, career club, Jacy Reece-talk, lecture at Stockholm School of Economics, lots of events and started up several local/student groups around the country!

Attend EA Work Parties! Every other Saturday a group of EAs meet at Neurora to get stuff done. We work on EAS projects or our own EA stuff. Keep an eye out on the facebook-page for information on the next one.

Annual General Meeting: highlights

We had a full AGM-weekend with dinners, a halloween party and a CFAR-inspired workshop. 27 members participated in the meeting and made the following decisions:

Adopted the CEA Guiding Principles of Effective Altruism to guide the swedish EA-community, see below for more information

Adopted a new board - see below for introductions

Adopted goals and a new strategy for growing and improving the community the coming year

Assigned the board with investigating the potential of an Advisory Board

Guiding Principles of Effective Altruism

EA Sweden will continue to grow and act with the following principles as the cornerstones of our culture. To see which other organizations also have adopted the principles, see here.

Commitment to Others:

We take the well-being of others very seriously, and are willing to take significant personal action in order to benefit others. What this entails can vary from person to person, and it's ultimately up to individuals to figure out what significant personal action looks like for them. In each case, however, the most essential commitment of effective altruism is to actively try to make the world a better place.

Scientific Mindset:

We strive to base our actions on the best available evidence and reasoning about how the world works. We recognize how difficult it is to know how to do the most good, and therefore try to avoid overconfidence, to seek out informed critiques of our own views, to be open to unusual ideas, and to take alternative points of view seriously.

Openness:

We are a community united by our commitment to these principles, not to a specific cause. Our goal is to do as much good as we can, and we evaluate ways to do that without committing ourselves at the outset to any particular cause. We are open to focusing our efforts on any group of beneficiaries, and to using any reasonable methods to help them. If good arguments or evidence show that our current plans are not the best way of helping, we will change our beliefs and actions.

Integrity:

Because we believe that trust, cooperation, and accurate information are essential to doing good, we strive to be honest and trustworthy. More broadly, we strive to follow those rules of good conduct that allow communities (and the people within them) to thrive. We also value the reputation of effective altruism, and recognize that our actions reflect on it.

Collaborative Spirit:

We affirm a commitment to building a friendly, open, and welcoming environment in which many different approaches can flourish, and in which a wide range of perspectives can be evaluated on their merits. In order to encourage cooperation and collaboration between people with widely varying circumstances and ways of thinking, we resolve to treat people of different world views, values, backgrounds, and identities kindly and respectfully.

The new board!

We are really excited about our new board. Each person brings a lot of experience and insight to the executive decision-making of EA Sweden. The first board meeting took place on November 1st, and the work has already begun to grow and improve the organization further! We have an exciting year ahead, focusing on our members and creating projects with positive impact.

Members:

Carin Ism

Carin, faculty of Singularity University Nordic branch and director of the Bitnation Future Governance Expedition, has been an effective altruist for many years and was one of the founding members of EA Sweden. Carin was the chair of the EA Sweden board 2017-2018, and previous director of the Global Challenges Foundation.

Vilhelm Skoglund

Ville is co-founder and CEO of the integration-focused charity Nema Problema Foundation. He has previous experience working in and founding charities in Sweden and South America.

Samuel Härgestam

Samuel is an entrepreneur and co-founder of EnginZyme, a company exploring a sustainable alternative to traditional chemical industry practices. He has been an effective altruist for many years and part of the Swedish Founders Pledge network.

Annica Johansson

Annica is Head of Impact at Reach for Change, a non-profit supporting social entrepreneurs globally. She was previously the Global Impact manager and has also worked as a social impact consultant as well as a management consultant.

Kristian Rönn

Kristian has a background working for Giving What We Can and Future of Humanity Institute. He currently runs his own social impact start-ups, Normative and Prism.

Simon Eckerström Liedholm

Simon is a 4th year PhD-student in zoology at Stockholm University and volunteers as a speaker for EA Sweden and EAA. Simon also works with EA Sweden’s impact measurement and manages our membership data.

EA Global and post-EAG event

A group of roughly 17 swedes attended EAG London the last weekend of october. This was a great way of keeping up to date with EA-developments as well as building a wider EA-network.

In order to bring discussions and learning back home EA Sweden hosted a post-EAG event where Erik Engelhardt and some other EAG-attendees shared their updates and notes. Contact Erik for more information and notes from the conference. The filmed sessions should be posted on youtube in the coming month.

Student groups

Since the founding of EA Sweden in 2016, there have been 3 main local groups in active in Sweden: EA KTH, EA SU (Stockholm University), EA SSE (Stockholm School of Economics). This year, 5 new (including EA Umeå rebuilding) local/student groups are starting up! This is really exciting.

EA Sweden hosted a Group Organizer Retreat in October to provide support, training and networking opportunities for the new group leaders.

The new local/student groups are the following:

EA Uppsala

EA Umeå (initially founded in 2016)

EA Linköping

EA Göteborg

EA KI

If you’re interested in joining one of these groups, have a look at facebook or get in touch with Gabriella (gabriella@effektivaltruism.org). If you’re interested in setting up a group at your university/local city please get in touch, EAS happily provides support!

RFG - Representation for Future Generations

EA Sweden’s Projekt Framtid group is working on establishing a cross-party political network for future generations, to provide a forum for discussion on neglected issues concerning future generations. The group is currently meeting politicians to set up the network, as well as establishing a network of supporting organizations. Denise Ferreras and Signe Savén are applying for funding to work part-time on the project.

Join our work parties. Every Saturday afternoon, we host EA work parties where we work together on effective altruism-related projects. The next one is Saturday 22nd. If you want to join, shoot Markus or Gabriella a message.

Wanna do something hands-on related to effective altruism? There’s tons of things you could help EA Sweden with (here’s a list)! Send an e-mail to gabriella@effektivaltruism.org to find out about current opportunities or schedule a meeting.

Facebook have released case studies looking at how different groups approached their Giving Tuesday donations last year. Including how effective altruism groups raised $379,000 for 33 different non profits (page 17)

New research into giving suggests that when most people are presented with evidence of impact, they still choose the cause they are most passionate about (except for people in positions of responsibility)

If any of those seem exciting, don’t hesitate shooting an e-mail to us. We’d be happy to help with different stages of your application!

In general, to find out who is recruiting when and where, we suggest you have a look at the facebook page Effective Altruism Job Postings or keep an eye on the 80,000Hours Job Board. In the new version of the 80,000Hours job board, you can filter by location, cause area and role type.

In this month’s newsletter, we have lots of exciting things to announce! The most exciting part: Gabriella is taking over the role as Executive Director and we’re hiring for a part-time Community Specialist. In addition, we’d love you all to join the Annual General Meeting on October 20th. Want to know more? Read on!

Things you can do right now

Apply to join the EA Sweden team as a part-time Community Specialist. More on this below and on our website. Apply no later than October 4th.

Apply to join the EA Sweden board of 2018-2019, apply here. Apply no later than 27/9.

Apply to join EA Global here. If you’re coming along, you can stay at a hostel with other Scandinavians cheaply by filling out this form. There aren’t many tickets for EAG left. If you can’t make it to London, don’t worry, we will host an event summarizing EAG on November 4th in Stockholm.

AGM-weekend with dinners, workshops and a halloween party at Neurora! 19-20/10.

Post-EA Global event summarizing the learnings of the conference in London. Open to all members. Sunday 4/11 at Neurora.

“How to become more productive” with Madeleine Ahlström. Tuesday 6/11 18.00 at Neurora.

Gabriella Overödder - our new Executive Director

Meet Gabriella Overödder, our new Executive Director

Gabriella Overödder will become EA Sweden’s new executive director! Gabriella has during the past year been a board member of EA Sweden, most recently as vice-chair, and been responsible for the organizations events and community. She has a background from Cambridge University and Sustainability Consulting at Goodpoint. The board is confident she’ll do a great job leading the organisation going forward.

Gabriella will be taking over while Markus moves on to work with for the Governance of AI Program at the Future of Humanity Institute, as their Project Manager. To learn more about the kind of things he’ll be working on, check out this podcast with Co-director of the program, Allan Dafoe, or just reach out!

Work with us: hiring a part-time Community Specialist

As Gabriella becomes Executive Director, we’ll need someone to take over the responsibility for EA Sweden’s wonderful community. In short, we need a Community Specialist!

We’re looking for someone to join us part-time, focusing on building a community of people highly dedicated to improving the world as much as possible. The role will be part-time (8h to 24h per week) for 3 months, with the possibility of extension or increase in hours per week based on the organisation’s need and the Specialist’s fit for the role.

Annual General Meeting October 20th: help shape EA Sweden’s future!

All of EA Sweden’s members are invited to this year’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) on October 20th in Stockholm. At the meeting, we will, among other things, decide on next year’s board and activity plan.

We’d like to seize the opportunity for effective altruists from all over Sweden to meet and join the meeting. Therefore, we’ve put together a program that includes far more than just the AGM. We will have dinners, workshops and a halloween party surrounding the AGM! Stay tuned for the agenda of the meeting.

Please sign up to attend the AGM here. And attend the facebook-event for the pre-AGM dinner on Friday the 19th here.

For those of you coming from outside of the Stockholm-area, please contact us for help with sleeping-arrangements. Get in touch with gabriella@effektivaltruism.org.

Documents for the meeting, including suggested board and plan for next year, will be sent out at the latest on October 13th. If you would like to submit a motion to the AGM, please do so before October 10th. As a point of reference, you can find our current statutes here.

If you’re interested in applying to join the board, you can do so here, ASAP (no later than 27/9). If you can’t apply by this date, you are free to put yourself forward at the AGM. If you wish to nominate someone else, get in touch with the Valberedning (the body that suggests a new board to the AGM), which can be reached via valberedning@effektivaltruism.org.

Wanna become a member? Fill out this form. Would you like to renew your membership? Fill out this form.

Want to get more involved?

Apply to join EA Global London in October. The nordic EA-groups have rented out a hostel for our members to stay at, you can apply here once you’ve receive a letter of acceptance to attend EAG.

Join our Annual General Meeting on the 20th October.

Join our work parties. Every other Saturday afternoon, we host EA work parties where we work together on effective altruism-related projects. This upcoming work party will be on Sunday the 23rd, however. If you want to join, shoot Markus or Gabriella a message. See the facebook-event here.

Wanna do something hands-on related to effective altruism? There’s tons of things you could help EA Sweden with (here’s a list)! Send an e-mail to gabriella@effektivaltruism.org to find out about current opportunities.

Some reading/listening tips

Will MacAskill, co-founder of both the Centre for Effective Altruism and 80,000Hours, just released his TED talk on effective altruism. It’s looking to be the new go-to introduction to effective altruism. Highly recommended! Watch it here.

There’s been discussions on the Effective Altruism Forum about the quality of the research of Animal Charity Evaluators, who work to identify the most high-impact charities in animal welfare . Read John Halstead’s initial post here and a response from Animal Charity Evaluators here.

Want to learn more about the latest thinking on the governance of artificial intelligence? Check out this podcast with Allan Dafoe, Co-Director of the Governance of AI Program.

Job tips

Work for us as a part-time Community Specialist. Apply before October 4th here.

Applications for the EA Grants just opened. You can apply for funding to carry out any kind of work that could be high-impact. Examples of what’s been funded recently include: research on the psychology of effective and ineffective altruism, productivity coaching for effective altruists and supporting Charity Entrepreneurship in starting high-impact charities. Read more here and apply before October 14th.

If any of those seem exciting, don’t hesitate shooting an e-mail to us. We’d be happy to help!

In general, to find out who is recruiting when and where, we suggest you have a look at the facebook page Effective Altruism Job Postings or keep an eye on the 80,000Hours Job Board. In the new version of the 80,000Hours job board, you can filter by location, cause area and role type.

This is an excerpt of our newsletter. If you want to join the newsletter, sign up here.

2018 has been a productive and exciting year for EA Sweden so far, and we’re very excited to see what’s gonna happen going forward. In particular, we’re very excited to have our Head of Community join EA Sweden full-time in September (name and details below)! In this newsletter, we’ll give you some info about what we’ve been up to over 2018 so far, what we’re planning to get up to going forward and give you a few tips.

Things you can do right now

Let us know if you want to help out EA Sweden in some way, e.g. by organising a local group, organizing events, joining the EA Sweden board or doing some research. Send an e-mail to markus@effektivaltruism.org! You can find a list of things you could help out with here.

2018 so far

Community building

EA Sweden has organized several recurring events, such as EA fikas, introductions to effective altruism, a book club, in-depth discussion groups, and a series of career workshops. Most recently, we organised our first Retreat, where 27 people spent a weekend in the archipelago outside Norrköping, participating in workshops and helping each other figure out how to and support each other in doing the most good.

Our first (hopefully annual) Summer Retreat!

A sub-group of EA Sweden, Effective Animal Altruism Stockholm, was formed about half a year ago, and has organized many workshops and seminars since. Check out their Facebook page if you are interested, upcoming events will be posted there.

Projekt Framtid

One of the big projects that EA Sweden initiated in April this year, is Projekt Framtid (more info on the project’s website). The goal of the project is to safeguard the interests of future generations, e.g. by supporting the formation of a cross-political network or commission, with the task of promoting the interests of future generations (see our full reasoning here on the EA Forum). Most recently, EA Sweden attended the Politician's Week in Almedalen and organized a seminar entitled ”Två minuter till midnatt - för en mer långsiktig politik”. We also published our recommendations with a number of other stakeholders in DN Debatt this Summer (read here).

Coming up during 2018

For the most part, we will continue to follow the strategy outlined in our post on the EA Forum in February. This means we will focus on building a community of people with a lot of dedication, knowledge and capability to act on the principles of effective altruism and improve the world as much as possible.

Fall events

We have loads of exciting events coming up during the fall, averaging about two events per week. These will range from introductory events and meet-ups to more in-depth workshops and discussions. Most of the events will take place in Stockholm, but local groups around the country will also be putting on events. To keep up to date, like our Facebook page or check out our website.

Some particular events to highlight:

Careers Club: The Careers Club is back this term! Thinking about your next career move? This is a 4-workshop series where you join a group of people all thinking about how they can maximise their impact in their careers. Apply to join here, before 9 September.

Book clubs: This fall, we’ll run two book clubs: Doing Good Better and Factfulness. Apply to join here before 31 August.

Fika: This is an opportunity to meet others interested in effective altruism. They will continue to be run once a month.

In-depth discussions: Every two weeks, we’ll run discussion groups focused on a particular topic and a few readings. It’s a great way to engage more deeply with the ideas of effective altruism, looking at questions like: Is it better to give now or later? What are the most pressing global problems? How should effective altruists take moral uncertainty into account? Can we do things to improve the long-run future of humanity?

Work sessions: We’ll host work sessions every few weeks where you can work alongside others interested in effective altruism. You can work on your side project, do something for EA Sweden or just study.

Projekt Framtid

Over the fall, we will focus primarily on figuring out how to get our recommendations implemented. We will be doing things like organising seminars, meeting with politicians and getting other important stakeholders excited about our recommendations.

Supporting local groups

There are more and more local groups of effective altruists around Sweden: e.g. Gothenburg, Lund, Linköping. We’re planning on giving these groups more support going forward, for example by organising a weekend for effective altruism group leaders during the fall.

We’re growing!

In April, we received a grant from the Centre for Effective Altruism to employ a Head of Community. After far more applications than we expected and several rounds of interviewing, Gabriella Overödder will be joining the team in September. We’re very much looking forward to it!

Another important thing to keep in mind is that our next Annual General Meeting is coming up. Now is a good time to think about how you can contribute to Effective Altruism Sweden going forward, e.g. by being a part of our board. If you’re thinking about this, feel free to contact Vera Wellander Lindén in “valberedningen”.

Want to get more involved?

EA GlobalCome to Effective Altruism Global in London October 26-28. Half the tickets have already been sold! Apply for a ticket here. It’s the go-to place to get to know the global community better. If you’re planning on going, feel free to stay with a group of other Scandinavians. 925 SEK for 3 nights! Apply here.

Apply to join our careers club and book clubsThe Careers Club applications close 9 September and the book club applications close on 31 August. Go ahead, applying will only take a few minutes!

Help EA SwedenWanna do something hands-on related to effective altruism? There’s tons of things you could help EA Sweden with (here’s a list)! Send an e-mail to markus@effektivaltruism.org to find out about current opportunities.

If you don’t get around to reading Nick Bostrom’s book Superintelligence, then you should consider listening to this episode of the podcast Partially Examined Life, where he is being interviewed about the book.

Job vacancies

There are currently loads of interesting job opportunities at some of the best-run organisations working on some of the world’s most pressing problems. Here’s just a few:

New Incentives (a GiveWell-recommended charity) is looking for a remote (i.e. you can work from Sweden) Program Manager in Operations, deadline ASAP.